EPFL researchers have built a pilot-scale solar reactor that produces usable heat and oxygen, in addition to generating hydrogen with unprecedented efficiency for its size.
A parabolic dish on the EPFL campus is easily overlooked, resembling a satellite dish or other telecommunications infrastructure. But this dish is special, because it works like an artificial tree. After concentrating solar radiation nearly 1,000 times, a reactor above the dish uses that sunlight to convert water into valuable and renewable hydrogen, oxygen, and heat.
